How we met {Princess and I, of course}

Here's the back story: My Ma-Maw, whom I was very close to, had just died in October. Her death was very quick and completely unexpected, and since then I had been feeling very sad. My fifteenth birthday had come and gone, and although my parents did everything they could to make it special it just wasn't the same without my Ma-Maw. After my birthday was over my mom asked, "Emily, what would make you happy? What can we do to make this better?" My answer: a puppy.

~~~ 

It was a Friday afternoon in late November. My mom picked us up from school and said we had to make a family trip to Weimar, because my dad had put up a new road sign that he wanted us to see.

"We all have to be really excited, because Dad is very proud of this sign," she told us.

My dad was a traffic engineer, and we spent many hours as kids riding around looking at bridges, traffic signals, and highway striping, so driving to Weimar to look at a road sign seemed perfectly normal. 

As soon as my dad got off work we all headed to Weimar, Brandon included. As we got closer I started to wonder which highway sign it was that my dad was so proud of, but my parents just kept saying, "We're almost there!"

After passing numerous signs that weren't "the sign" we turned onto a gravel road. Right then I knew my parents were up to something. 'No way there's a big important sign on this road,' I thought. We then turned into a driveway and parked in front of a house that I didn't recognize.

"What are we doing here?" I asked.

"Let's just get out and see," my mom told me.

As soon as we opened the car doors all I heard was barking coming from this family's backyard.

"We're getting a puppy!!!"

As the owner walked us through to her backyard my excitement began to build. There was a large, fenced in area where some of the puppies were playing. They were all brown and looked exactly like the dachshund I had when I was four years old. They were cute, but they were already several months old and looked more like grown-up dogs than puppies.

"Well, which one do you want?" my dad asked.

As I stood there looking through the fence I just couldn't decide. They all looked the same to me, and I didn't know how I was going to choose.

While we were watching the grown-up puppies play the owner went over to another part of the yard, and as she walked back I heard her say, "We also have some younger ones, if you are interested."

I turned around to find her holding the smallest, sweetest, most adorable little puppy I had ever seen. The owner put the puppy in my hands, and I immediately fell in love!

"This is the one I want!!"

It took a little bit of convincing, because this little tiny puppy cost quite a bit more than the grown-up puppies, but after several rounds of "but Daaad......" we were on our way home with Princess. {I'm sure if you asked my dad today he'd say she was definitely worth it!}

That's why Princess is so special to me; she helped me grieve the loss of my MaMaw.

Do you want to know what's really strange? Four years ago Princess ran away {her tiny little legs ran all the way across Yoakum!}, and we found her on October 11th, the anniversary of MaMaw's death.

In my family we call that "a God thing", but in this case I think it was "a MaMaw thing".